Introduction
In recent days, Daniel Adler’s proposed Security Plan has circulated in the media. The initiative has generated both anticipation and skepticism: some sectors view it as innovative, while others criticize its limitations and unrealistic promises. Its comprehensive character—combining force operations, centralized intelligence, and economic inclusion—is unusual in the region and merits careful examination. This article aims to highlight its contributions, identify its weaknesses, and suggest ways to make it an executable and sustainable agenda.
General Approach
The plan begins with a correct premise: there can be no security without economic and social inclusion, particularly through education and financial literacy. The strategy combines shock measures—partial militarization, police retraining, stricter judicial enforcement—with social prevention programs such as entrepreneurship workshops, personal branding, and assistance for drug users. The objective is to contain violence immediately and, in the medium term, reduce the sources of organized crime recruitment.
This approach is not new, but it is valuable. In Colombia, during Álvaro Uribe’s second administration, Integral Action—the convergence of military operations with socioeconomic development programs—was decisive in recovering territories dominated by illegal structures and restoring state legitimacy.
Main Pillars of the Plan
The plan is organized around four central axes:
- Judicial reform: proposes purging judges and prosecutors, creating special courts, and stiffening penalties. While it aims to sever ties between the judiciary and organized crime, a massive purge without technical criteria could paralyze the judicial system; the alternative is a gradual process with asset and performance evaluations.
- Armed forces and police: proposes intensive retraining in urban combat, non-verbal communication, and psychological deterrence; additionally, “politicalizing” part of the Armed Forces, creating a national SWAT team, and strengthening counterintelligence. These are high-impact measures, but without a doctrine of joint and interagency operations, they risk fragmentation or overloading existing capacities.
- Territorial and prison control: this includes states of emergency in critical areas, the militarization of neighborhoods and prisons, restrictions on prison communications, and saturation patrols, accompanied by social programs to rebuild community fabric. The diagnosis is correct, but it is insufficient without sustained logistical control of ports and prisons, which are the true centers of gravity for organized crime.
- Economic and social inclusion: calls for financial education, employment programs, entrepreneurship workshops, sports and health activities, and comprehensive assistance for addicts. This is a strength, as it acknowledges that prevention and opportunity are key to reducing gang recruitment.
General Assessment
The plan demonstrates an articulated, comprehensive design. It takes up lessons from the Colombian experience that proved decisive: differentiated training, linking socioeconomic development with security, deploying special forces, and strengthening operational intelligence. Nevertheless, it omits strategic components essential for execution and sustainability: explicit political-strategic leadership, a doctrine of joint and interagency operations, and an agenda for restructuring and tactical innovation within law enforcement. It also falls short on international cooperation, which is crucial for accessing technical intelligence, training, and equipment modernization.
In anticorruption, the plan mentions a program but only superficially. This should be a cross-cutting axis. Organized crime thrives when it captures institutions through bribery and intimidation. Without a robust integrity policy, including asset vetting, whistleblower protection, and external audits, there will be no institutional reconstruction or recovery of citizen trust.
Comparative Analysis of Colombian Doctrine Success Factors
- Strategy and leadership: Colombia achieved continuity by combining political leadership and military command under a unified strategy. Adler’s plan lacks such a framework, reducing its feasibility.
- Restructuring and tactical innovation: the creation of GAULA (Unified Action Groups for Personal Liberty), CCOES (Joint Special Operations Command), and specialized brigades showed that organizational and doctrinal change matter as much as training. The plan proposes a national SWAT, retraining, and infiltration, but remains reactive. A structural reform ensuring interoperability, joint command and control, and short-cycle tactical learning is missing.
- Technological modernization and intelligence: Colombia’s intelligence centralization relied on technology, cybersecurity, protocols, and civilian oversight. The “Molecule Plan” does not detail data governance, legal frameworks, or cyber defenses. Without these, fusing information raises risks of leaks and manipulation. Modernization must include sensors, analytics, digital chain of custody, and technical partnerships.
- Professionalization and legitimacy: the shift to professional forces increased performance and legitimacy. Rapidly “politicizing” 10% of the Armed Forces, without a professionalization path and clear rules of engagement, poses legal and operational risks. Profiles, selection standards, tailored training, civilian oversight, and use-of-force protocols are required.
- Socioeconomic development and integral action: the security-development link is a strength. To work, it requires measurable territorial goals, timelines, and sectoral accountability. Otherwise, state presence will be reduced to temporary operations without social reconstruction or sustained reductions in criminal recruitment.
- International cooperation: cooperation underpinned Colombia’s modernization and professionalization. Adler’s plan gives it little attention, despite Ecuador’s involvement in transnational logistics chains. Operational agreements in ports and borders, intelligence sharing, customs technical assistance, cargo traceability, and training and equipment support are necessary.
Risks and Overstatements
- 90-day deadline to “eradicate” crime: technically unfeasible. Security requires longer judicial and logistical cycles; without clear interim goals, the promise undermines credibility.
- Policialization of 10% of the Armed Forces: poses legal, command, and training challenges. Transitioning military roles into policing is not immediate. A more viable alternative would be creating temporary Task Forces with a specific purpose.
- Prolonged state of emergency: extended use of exceptional measures weakens the rule of law and normalizes suspension of guarantees. It may also strain relations with international organizations and strategic partners, who distrust permanent exceptionalism as a substitute for sustainable security policies.
- Mass purge of the judiciary: indiscriminate removal of judges and prosecutors will not solve structural problems and risks paralyzing services. A more effective alternative is a gradual selection process with asset vetting, performance evaluations, and stronger internal controls, ensuring independence and transparency without disrupting continuity.
- Guard posts and saturation patrols can serve as substitutes for intelligence, but they have an immediate deterrent effect only when accompanied by robust analysis of criminal patterns, corridor control, and prison recovery. Without this, they can become costly, low-impact, and vulnerable targets.
- Centralized intelligence without clear governance (“Molecule Plan”): integrating state and private data without a robust legal framework risks leaks, political manipulation, and breaches of sensitive information. Legal safeguards, cybersecurity protocols, and external audits are essential for legitimacy.
Specific Recommendations to Close Gaps
- Leadership framework: security council with legal mandate, quarterly goals, and public indicator dashboards.
- Joint doctrine: shared manuals and operational rules for police, military, prosecutors, and customs, with fusion centers and embedded prosecutors in operations.
- Integrity as a core axis: asset vetting for critical posts, protected reporting channels, external audits, and effective sanctions.
- Ports and prisons first: non-intrusive scanning of high-risk cargo, container profiling, smart seals, signal blocking, and unified prison command.
- Professionalization: role-based training tracks, certifications, continuous evaluation, and human rights compliance as a condition for promotion.
- Cooperation: technical agreements with partners on intelligence, cybersecurity, customs, and training; participation in regional crime-fighting networks.
A Viable and Measurable Path
Daniel Adler’s plan could evolve into a more realistic and sustainable agenda if structured in progressive phases, each with concrete goals and verifiable KPIs to measure progress and adjust course in time:
- Phase 0 (30 days): establish a unified command board with clear coordination rules, force protocols, and intelligence-sharing mechanisms.
- Integrity Phase (Cross-cutting – 0 to 365 days): Combating organized crime requires not just operational strength but institutional resilience. From the outset, implement an Integrity and Reliability strategy that includes ethics units, trust evaluations, protected reporting channels, digitization of sensitive processes, and anti-corruption training.
- Phase 1 (90 days): control critical nodes. Focus efforts on ports and prisons, the main power centers of organized crime in Ecuador. At ports: implement 100% non-intrusive scanning of high-risk cargo, advanced container profiling, smart seals, and mixed teams with international cooperation. At prisons: full signal blocking, selective transfers of ringleaders, custodial asset audits, and unified command in priority centers. Success here would send an immediate message of state control recovery.
- Phase 2 (180 days): operational and financial expansion. Expand the national anti-extortion unit to high-incidence cantons, enhancing whistleblower protection and investigative capabilities. In parallel, consolidate financial investigation teams integrating customs, tax, and banking data to trace illicit capital and advance asset forfeiture. Additionally, deploy targeted quadrant patrols, supported by crime analytics and chain-of-custody cameras, in neighborhoods with high rates of homicide and extortion.
- Phase 3 (180 days): evaluation and social dimension. Conduct an independent, public evaluation of security indicators with external audits and accountability to citizens. Based on this, scale up social programs in high-recruitment neighborhoods, including youth employment, entrepreneurship workshops, community mediation, and the reintegration of ex-gang members. This is key to showing that the state not only represses but also offers sustainable alternatives.
Suggested KPIs: reduction of homicides in priority cantons, number of extortion complaints prosecuted, seizures at ports, prisons under effective control, police response times, and citizen participation in employment programs.
Conclusions
Daniel Adler’s plan brings an interesting approach by combining force operations, centralized intelligence, and economic inclusion—a rare triad in security proposals in the region. However, its greatest fragility lies in disproportionate expectations—such as the promise of total results in 90 days—extended militarization of internal security, and scant attention to ports and prisons, which are the real centers of gravity of organized crime in Ecuador.
With phased implementation, verifiable indicators, effective civilian oversight, and a robust legal framework, the proposal could become a feasible roadmap for reducing violence and restoring state governance. Otherwise, it risks remaining an ambitious speech without operational substance or long-term sustainability.